The statements in this section merely provide background information related to the present disclosure and may not constitute prior art.
Multistatic arrays are a set of transmitters and receivers that can be used to measure a “location” of an object. Such arrays typically operate by emitting a wave from a transmitter and measuring the response received by all the receivers in the array. The response allows the location of the target as well as its physical shape to be characterized.
Multistatic arrays require that all the transmitters and receivers be timed in such a way that a target in the field of view of the array appears to be in the same “location” no matter what transmitter/receiver pair is used to measure the location of the target. At high speed data collection, varying cable lengths and capacitance result in time skewing from the ideal.
Previously, the needed time calibration was accomplished by a person manually moving an extra antenna in front of the array and observing the signal on an oscilloscope and manually adjusting the timing to put a well-known portion of the pulse at the proper time location on the oscilloscope. As one can imagine, this process of manually adjusting the timing introduces the possibility of human error into the calibration process. Requiring the use of a person to manually position an external antenna in front of the array also may introduce additional cost, time and complexity into the calibration process.